Incarceron (Incarceron, Book 1) (3 page)

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them. He was dressed in a ruffled brown silk suit, and leaning against a tree.

"Caspar, Earl of Steen. Crown Prince of the Realm. Fine titles. His face hasn't changed, has it? He was merely impudent then. Now he's feckless, brutal, and thinks he is beyond control." He looked at her. "A challenge, your future husband."

She shrugged, making the dress rustle. "I can deal with him."

"Of course you can. I've made sure of that." He came over to her and stood before her, and his gray gaze appraised her. She stared straight back.

"I created you for this marriage, Claudia. Gave you taste, intelligence, ruthlessness. Your education has been more rigorous than anyone's in the Realm. Languages, music, swordplay, riding, every talent you even hinted at possessing I have nurtured. Expense is nothing to the Warden of Incarceron. You are an heiress of great estates. I've bred you as a queen and Queen you will be. In every marriage, one leads, one follows. Though this is merely a dynastic arrangement, it will be so here."

She looked up at the portrait. "I can handle Caspar. But his mother ..."

"Leave the Queen to me. She and I understand each other." He took her hand, holding her ring finger lightly between two of his; tense, she held herself still.

"It will be easy," he breathed.

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In the stillness of the warm room a wood pigeon cooed outside the casement.

Carefully, she took her hand from his and drew herself up. "So, when?"

"Next week."

"Next week!"

"The Queen has already begun preparations. In two days we set off for Court. Make sure you're ready."

Claudia said nothing. She felt empty, and stunned.

John Arlex turned toward the door. "You've done well here. The Era is impeccable, except for that window. Get it changed."

Without moving she said quietly, "How was your time at Court?"

"Wearisome."

"And your work? How is Incarceron?"

For a fraction of a second he paused. Her heart thudded. Then he turned and his voice was cold and curious. "The Prison is in excellent order. Why do you ask?"

"No reason." She tried to smile, wanting to know how he monitored the Prison, where it was, because all her spies had told her he never left the Court. But the mysteries of Incarceron were the least of her worries now.

"Ah yes. I nearly forgot." He crossed to a leather bag on the table and tugged it open. "I bring a gift from your future mother-in-law." He pulled it out and set it down.

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They both looked at it.

A sandalwood box, tied with ribbon.

Reluctant, Claudia reached out for the tiny bow, but he said, "Wait," took out a small scanning wand, and moved it over the box. Images flashed down its stem. "Harmless." He folded the wand. "Open it."

She lifted the lid. Inside, in a frame of gold and pearls, was an enameled miniature of a black swan on a lake, the emblem of her house. She took it out and smiled, pleased despite herself by the delicate blue of the water, the bird's long elegant neck. It's pretty.

"Yes, but watch."

The swan was moving. It seemed to glide, peacefully at first; then it reared up, flapping its great wings, and she saw how an arrow came slowly out of the trees and pierced its breast. It opened its golden beak and sang, an eerie, terrible music. Then it sank under the water and vanished.

Her father's smile was acid. "How very charming," he said.

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3

***

The experiment will be a bold one and there

may well be risks we have not foreseen. But

Incarceron will be a system of great complexity
and intelligence. There could be no kinder or
more compassionate guardian for its inmates.

--Project report; Martor Sapiens

***

It was a long way back to the shaft, and the tunnels were low. The Maestra walked with her head bent; she was silent
,
her arms hugging herself. Keiro had put Big Arko to watch her, Finn stayed right at the back behind the wounded.

In this part of the wing, Incarceron was dark and mostly uninhabited. Here the Prison rarely bothered itself to stir, putting its lights on infrequently and sending few Beetles out. Unlike the stone transitway above, these floors were made of a metallic mesh that gave slightly underfoot; as Finn walked he saw the gleam of a rat's eyes where it crouched, dust falling on its metal scales.

He was stiff and sore, and as always after an ambush, angry. For everyone else the pent-up tension had burst; even the injured chattered as they stumbled, and their loud laughter had the energy of relief in it. He turned his head and looked back. Behind them the tunnel was windblown and echoing. Incarceron would be listening.

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He couldn't talk and he didn't want to laugh. A bleak stare at a few joking remarks warned the others off; he saw Lis nudge Amoz and raise her eyebrows. Finn didn't care. The anger was inside, at himself, and it was mixed with fear and a hot, scorching pride, because no one else had had the guts to be chained like that, to lie there in all that silence and wait for death to come rolling over him.

In his mind he felt the huge wheels again, high above his head.

And he was angry with the Maestra.

The Comitatus took no prisoners. It was one of the rules. Keiro was one thing, but when they got back to the Den he'd have to explain her to Jormanric, and that turned him cold. But the woman knew something about the tattoo on his wrist, and he had to find out what that was. He might never have another chance.

Walking, he thought about that flash of vision. As always it had hurt, as if the memory--if it was one--had sparked and struggled up from some deep, sore place, a lost pit of the past. And it was hard to keep it clear; already he had forgotten most of it, except the cake on a plate, decorated with silver balls. Stupid and useless. Telling him nothing about who he was, or where he had come from.

The shaft had a ladder down its side; the scouts swarmed over first, then the Prisoners and the warband, lowering goods and the wounded. Last of all Finn climbed down, noticing how

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the smooth sides were cracked here and there where shriveled black ferns broke out. Those would have to be cleared, otherwise the Prison might sense them, seal off this duct, and reabsorb the whole tunnel, as it had last year when they'd come back from a raid to find the old Den gone, and only a wide white passageway decorated with abstract images of red and gold.

"Incarceron has shrugged its shoulders," Gildas had said grimly.

That was the first time he had heard the Prison laugh.

He shivered, remembering it now, a cold, amused chuckle that had echoed down the corridors. It had silenced Jormanric in mid-fury, had made the hairs on his own skin prickle with terror. The Prison was alive. It was cruel and careless, and he was inside it.

He leaped down the last rungs into the Den. The great chamber was as noisy and untidy as ever, the warmth of its blazing fires overwhelming. As people clustered anxiously around the plunder, pulling the grain sacks open, tugging out food, he pushed through the crowd and made straight for the tiny cell he shared with Keiro. No one stopped him.

Inside, he latched the flimsy door and sat on the bed. The room was cold and smelled of unwashed clothes, but it was quiet. Slowly, he let himself lie back.

He breathed in, and inhaled terror. It came over him in a wave, appalling; he knew the hammering of his heart would kill him, felt cold sweat ice his back and upper lip. Until now

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he had kept it at bay, but these shuddering heartbeats were the vibrations of the giant wheels; as he jammed his palms into his closed eyes he saw the metal rims looming above him, lay in a screeching fountain of sparks.

He could have been killed.
Or, worse still, crushed and maimed. Why had he said he would do it? Why did he always have to live up to their stupid, reckless reputation?

"Finn?"

He opened his eyes.

After a moment, he rolled over.

Keiro was standing with his back to the door.

"How long have you been there?" Finns voice cracked; he cleared his throat hastily.

"Long enough." His oathbrother came and sat on the other bed. "Tired?"

"That's one word for it."

Keiro nodded. Then he said, "There's always a price to pay. Any Prisoner knows that." He looked at the door. "None of them out there could have done what you did."

"I'm not a Prisoner."

"You are now."

Finn sat up and rubbed his dirty hair. "You could have done

it."

"Well, yes, I could." Keiro smiled. "But then, I'm extraordinary, Finn, an artist of theft. Devastatingly handsome, utterly ruthless, totally fearless." He tipped his head sideways, as if

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waiting for the snort of scorn; when it didn't come he laughed and pulled off his dark coat and jerkin. Unlocking the chest, he dropped the sword and firelock in, then searched among the heap of clothes and dragged out a red shirt flamboyantly laced with black.

Finn said, "Next time you, then."

"Have you ever known me not take my turn, brother? The Comitatus have to have our reputation pounded into their thick heads. Keiro and Finn. The fearless. The best." He poured water from the jug and washed. Finn watched wearily. Keiro had smooth skin, lithe muscles. In all this hell of deformed and starved people, of halfmen and pock-beggars, his oathbrother was perfect. And he took great care to stay that way. Now, pulling the red shirt on, Keiro threaded a stolen trinket into his mane of hair and looked at himself carefully in the fragment of mirror. Without turning he said, "Jormanric wants you."

Finn had been expecting it; even so it chilled him. "Now?"

"Right now. You'd better clean up."

He didn't want to. But after a moment he poured out fresh water and rubbed at the grease and oil on his arms.

Keiro said, "I'll back you about the woman. On one condition."

Finn paused. "What?"

"That you tell me what this is really all about."

"There's nothing ..."

Keiro threw the ragged towel at him. "Finn Starseer doesn't

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sell women or children. Amoz yes, or any of the hard cases. Not you."

Finn looked up; Keiro's blue eyes gazed straight back.

"Maybe I'm just getting like the rest of you." He dried his face in the gritty rag, then, not bothering to change, headed for the door. Halfway there Keiro's voice stopped him.

"You think she knows something about you."

Ruefully, Finn turned. "Sometimes I wish I'd picked someone less sharp to watch my back. All right. Yes. There was something she said ... that might ... that I need to ask her about. I need her alive."

Keiro moved past him to the door. "Well, don't sound too keen or he'll kill her in front of your face. Let me do most of the talking." He checked for listeners outside and looked back over his shoulder. "Scowl, and stay silent, brother. It's what you're good at."

***

THE DOOR to Jormanric's cell had the usual two bodyguards in front of it, but a wide grin from Keiro made the nearer grunt and step aside. Following his oathbrother in, Finn almost choked on the familiar sweet stench of ket, its intoxicating fumes heavy in the air. It caught in his throat; he swallowed, trying not to breathe too deeply.

Keiro elbowed through the pairs of oathbrothers, right to the front, and Finn trailed after his flashy red coat among the drab crowd.

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Most of them were halfmen. Some had metallic claws for hands, or plastic tissue in patches where the skin had gone. One had a false eye that looked exactly like a real one, except that it was blind, the iris a sapphire. They were the lowest of the low, enslaved and despised by the pure; men whom the Prison had repaired, sometimes cruelly, sometimes just on a whim. One, a dwarfish, bent man with wiry hair, didn't step out of the way fast enough. Keiro floored him with one blow.

Keiro had a peculiar hatred for the halfmen. He never spoke to them, and barely acknowledged they existed, rather like the dogs that infested the Den. As if, Finn thought, his own perfection was insulted by their existence.

The crowd fell back, and they were among the warband. The Comitatus of Jormanric was a shambling and feckless army, fearless only in its own imagination. Big and Little Arko; Amoz and his twin, Zoma; the frail girl Lis, who went berserk in fights; and her oathsister, Ramill, who never said a word. A crowd of old lags and brash big-mouthed boys, sly cutthroats, and a few women expert in poisons. And, surrounded by his muscle-bound bodyguard, the man himself.

Jormanric, as always, was chewing ket. His few teeth worked automatically, scarlet with the sweet juice that stained his lips and beard. Behind him his bodyguard chewed in unison.

He must be totally immune to the drug, Finn thought. Even if he couldn't do without it.